Transcript
The Court of Disputed Returns has granted what's called substituted service, so the parties have been relieved of the need to serve documents individually to the more than two dozen MPs belonging to the ruling FijiFirst party. They can advertise the election petition in the daily newspapers which I understand they are organising as we speak.
On Monday the court - which is in effect the High Court - had given the parties ... the Social Democratic Liberal Party ... SODELPA, and the National Federation Party - 24 hours to deliver the legal documents to all the remaining respondents individually. They'd only managed by then to deliver documents to the Supervisor of Elections and not the 27 MPs and a former govt minister who'd lost his seat.
In the latest hearing the opposition presented affidavits to try and prove they had made efforts via their bailiffs to present the documents in person to all FijiFirst's MPs. In their ruling on the matter, the judges allowed them to put out the notice in this public format via the newspapers, which I understand is fairly standard procedure when there's been difficulty serving legal documents.
BEN ROBINSON DRAWBRIDGE: The opposition's attempts to serve the documents seems to have caused a stir in Fiji?
SALLY ROUND: Yes ... the parties this week have been livestreaming on social media attempts to actually hand over these documents at a building in central Suva, Suvavou House... where the offices of the Attorney General are located. Cameras followed the party leaders up to the ninth floor where a security man told them there was a workshop going on and they couldn't get in ... there was a sort of vigil held outside the building overnight ... watching comings and goings .... and opposition representatives reported they'd seen food and bedding being delivered. The opposition claimed a number of MPs including ministers were holed up trying to evade being served the documents and had not appeared publicly since Tuesday. The government side has yet to respond to request for comment.
BRD: So what's the opposition's complaint about the election results?
SR: The parties are disputing some of the tallying and the allocation of seats and numbers. FijiFirst gained a sliver over 50 percent of the vote ... 50.02 percent to be precise. The opposition parties also allege unlawful activities of election candidates during the blackout period for campaigning, as well as FijiFirst members giving out so-called "freebies" in their official position as ministers.
